The Sociopathic Founder of the United States

Two years ago journalist Robert Parry published his article on the debate between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton during the early years of the existence of the United States of America. The balance of the contention between these two important figures of American history was very favorable to Jefferson. But the recent success on Broadway of the musical “Hamilton” has reopened the understanding of the facts by showing aspects of the dark side of Jefferson which had not been widely known.

One of the Founding Fathers of the United States, and main author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), Jefferson was elected second vice president of the United States (1797-1801) under President John Adams, and in 1800, became the third president of the country.

Although Jefferson owned numerous plantations where hundreds of slaves worked, he is considered a promoter of democracy, republicanism and individual rights, factors that motivated North American settlers to break up with Britain and create the new nation.

As a rule on July Fourth, anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and a national holiday in the United States, expressions on human rights in the Declaration of Independence are widely quoted, especially the noble phrase “all men are created equal” penned by Thomas Jefferson.

“But Jefferson really didn’t believe that or much else he said and wrote during his lifetime. He was, in reality, a skilled propagandist and a world-class hypocrite,” journalist Robert Parry clarifies in an article recently printed on July 4th by the Consortium News website.

“Yet, rather than subject Jefferson to a rigorous examination for his multiple hypocrisies, many Americans insist on protecting Jefferson’s reputation. From the Left, there is a desire to shield the lofty principles contained in the Declaration. From the Right, there is value in pretending that Jefferson’s revisionist concept of the Constitution, one favoring states’ rights over the federal government was the “originalist” view of that founding document.”

Despite the Constitution’s explicit reference to making federal law “the supreme law of the land,” Jefferson exploited lingering resentments over ratification to reassert the states’ supremacy over the federal government. Often working behind the scenes, even while serving as Vice President under President John Adams, Jefferson promoted each state’s right to nullify federal law.

“So, Jefferson, perhaps more than any figure in U.S. history, gets a pass for what he really was: a self-absorbed aristocrat who had one set of principles for himself and another for everybody else,” Parry wrote.

Beyond the glaring contradiction between his “all men are created equal” pronouncement and his racist views on African-American slaves, he also lectured others about the need for frugality and the avoidance of debt while he lived a life of personal extravagance and was constantly in arrears to creditors.

According to Parry, more evidence of Jefferson’s ambivalence is his famous phrase, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” That is one of Jefferson’s famous quotes repeated endlessly these days by both the right-wing Tea Party and would-be leftist revolutionaries.

“But Jefferson’s bravado was more a rhetorical flourish than a principle that he was ready to live or die by. In 1781, when he had a chance to put his own blood where his mouth was, when a Loyalist force led by the infamous traitor Benedict Arnold advanced on Richmond, Virginia, then-Gov. Jefferson fled for his life on the fastest horse he could find,” Parry wrote.

Nevertheless, Jefferson later built his political career by questioning the revolutionary commitment of Alexander Hamilton and even George Washington, who repeatedly did risk their lives in fighting for American liberty.

But what Jefferson’s many apologists have most desperately tried to obscure was his wretched record on race. Parry illustrates this with many stories about his personal, family and social life.

“As unpleasant as it may be for Americans who prefer, especially on July Fourth, to ponder the pleasant image of Jefferson as the aristocratic republican with a taste for fine art and a fondness for free-thinking, it is well past time to look at the Declaration’s author as the person he really was, America’s founding sociopath,” Parry concludes.

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